Energy Industry Updates for March 2010

With Health Care Reform Out of the Way, Is Comprehensive Energy and Climate Change Legislation Next?

The thunderbolt that struck Washington, D.C. — literally and figuratively — early on the morning of March 22, 2010 not only changed the fortune of the health care reform legislation but also put back in play many of President Obama's other key legislative initiatives, including the energy and climate change proposal.

Some speculated in January 2010 that the election of Massachusetts Republican Scott Brown to the U.S. Senate had reshaped the political landscape unlike any political event in a generation, and had dealt health care and the energy and global climate change proposals a crippling blow. But, in retrospect, Mr. Brown's election now seems to have been the high-water mark in the opposition to health care reform. It's a whole new ballgame on a series of Obama legislative initiatives that includes the energy and global climate change legislation.